Lawsuit alleges sexual harassment and assault against well-known SF movie theater

Three former workers filed a lawsuit against Alamo Drafthouse and two managers at the movie theater’s location in San Francisco’s Mission District on Tuesday, alleging sexual harassment, discrimination, and other unsafe workplace conditions.

The suit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, contains a number of serious allegations on behalf of the three former workers, all of whom were employed in the theater’s kitchen area between 2018 and 2022. The three former workers also filed charges of discrimination, harassment, and retaliation with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing.

Two of the former workers in the lawsuit are a mother and daughter; the daughter alleges in the suit that on one occasion, when she was 18, she was followed into the walk-in freezer by a manager, who groped her and tried to kiss her without her consent. She and her mother complained about the incident, but allege that the managers named in the suit — who are brothers — took no action. Both women, as well as the third former worker — a male who was employed as a cook — are of Hispanic descent and do not speak fluent English; they all allege that their managers did not properly promote and convey workplace rules and regulations in Spanish.

“It was functionally impossible for Plaintiffs to make complaints further up the hierarchy than [defendants], because more senior administrators did not speak Spanish and provided no mechanism for Spanish-speaking kitchen workers to raise issues with management,” the suit reads.

The mother and daughter allege that the two aforementioned Alamo Drafthouse managers repeatedly retaliated against them, requiring them to work under threats of termination despite health issues including an eye infection, frequent burns from grilling and a cut finger from chopping up meat. The third former worker in the suit says he was punished and fired for leaving a shift early because he was sick and contagious.

The mother and daughter further observed that, despite the lack of accessible Spanish-language workplace rules and regulations, their kitchen managers were “largely hiring younger Spanish speaking women from other regions of Central and Latin America for their kitchen staff.” Two other kitchen staffers, both young women, complained that they were assaulted by the same manager, according to the suit. After learning of this information, the mother and daughter resigned as soon as they were financially able, the suit says.

The three former workers are seeking unspecified damages of more than $25,000, according to the lawsuit. Attorneys for the former workers told SFGATE they aren’t sure if the managers named in the suit are still employed at Alamo Drafthouse. The movie theater chain did not respond to repeated requests for comment.